I've always enjoyed shooting at night and capturing different ways movement contrast with lighting. In fact, I was thinking of displaying my work locally, but would really like some feedback on certain captures I was thinking of submitting.
So for starters, I'd really welcome some feedback on this capture:
@g_meus - Gary I've been shooting many night time city shots for past month and love it. I find that twilight works great because still enough natural light for detail but dark enough to capture illumination and reflections of artificial light. But straight dark night shooting is trickier for sure. My biggest concern is since shutter is slow you need super steady touch on trigger and zero movement.
This is beautful, but I might crop off the bottom part after the reflections stop, and maybe some off of the right where the 2 harsh white lights are. I agree with @michaelelliott about bringing out the color a bit more too. Really minor stuff---this image is really already great!
@g_meus@5unflow3r - Gary, Trina makes a great point and something I always follow - avoid white hot light when shooting in dark night as it distracts from shot. I'm far from an expert but check out some of my night shots. I always go for soft colorful light and avoid white hot :)
Here's my 2 cents for what it's worth: I agree with Trina about cropping out the two bright white lights on the right. They take away from the prettier colored lights and the fountain. And I'd also crop out the first object on the bottom which is only partially lit. I find that even more distracting than the lights. That's probably about where Trina sees the reflections stopping in the water. That will bring the shot in a little tighter so that your subject is featured more prominently in the photo. Right now (at least for me) it's fighting for attention with those distractions. What I do like about this picture though is how clean the lines are and the arch of the fountain.
I agree with Ann that the flower in the foreground is distracting. I find my eye being drawn to it when what I really want to be looking are the gorgeous fountain and reflections. I saw the b&w version in Jason's thread and thought it looked awesome, but the foreground still bugged me.
@5unflow3r thanks for the input ME! I think I've struggled a bit with working with the light reflections in post processing, but just because it really is a fear of overexposing it and becoming harsh rather than a nice compliment to the image.
@michaelelliott Thanks for the input Trina! I have to say that's it's only when you and the others mentioned it that I actually noticed the foreground. I was so consumed by focusing on capturing the entirety of the fountain and reflection that everything else was secondary. I also need to start carrying my tripod more often as this capture was set up on the planters around the fountain.
@olivetreeann Thanks for your 2cents Ann: really appreciate it. It's so helpful to have such a reaction from this image as my focus was truly on maximizing the view of the fountain without cropping any of the reflections. But I can clearly see the battle for attention within the image and how distracting some of the other elements are too.
@dweezie Thanks Amanda! Really helpful! I do believe that packing my tripod for these types of captures will probably help more in capturing what I really want to catch instead of settling for what I can catch and depend on the sites objects to get a shot. Thanks for the b&w comment as well! Really appreciate it!
@g_meus A tripod is great for this and an added plus, at least for me, is that, in trying to positioning the tripod correctly, I pay more attention to the actual framing of the photo. :-) I was glad to help--I really like this photo and look forward to seeing your edits. :-)
Very awesome. But now I have to admit that greenish light at the top is dragging my eyes away! It wasn't distracting me in the uncropped one or your b&w version, so I think @jasonbarnette might've hit the nail on the head with all that. I'd never even thought of making night shots b&w before, but now it makes a lot of sense, unless it's something like a skyline or light trail shot where lots of multi-colored lights are part of the main effect. I love what you've been able to do with one image - it's amazing how much we can all learn when we share!
@dweezie I've even thought about making some of my fireworks and light trail photos B&W. Sometimes it is more about the patterns than the colors. As for that green light, I'd actually just remove that in Photoshop and leave this in color.
@dweezie Thanks Amanda. It actually does take the eye away when looking at it this way. But like @jasonbarnette said, it's a pretty easy fix in Photoshop, so I'll try it for sure.
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So for starters, I'd really welcome some feedback on this capture: